Tonight, on a very special "Phyllis"

Ed Winter was so handsome. I remember when he was on Somerset and killed his wife, India.

The show was based in SF right?

Yes, r2. After Lars died, Phyllis and her daughter Bess moved from Minneapolis to San Francisco to live with Lars's mother and her second husband.

I've always felt this show had one of the all-time great theme songs. In the vein of "Hello, Dolly" and "Made" but with an unexpected, bitter twist at the end. Absolutely suited to the character.

Thanks for posting, OP. This was quite groundbreaking and sensitive for the '70s.

Although I thought Phyllis was way too pushy about getting him to tell his parents.

Mother Dexter was a hoot!

An oddly geriatric cast for mid-'70s primetime. Also, poor Barbara Colby; I still can't believe her murder was completely random,

"At the time of her death, Colby was separated from her husband, Bob Levitt, son of Ethel Merman"

Mm-hmmm

I loved Mother Dexter's wedding.

[quote]Also, poor Barbara Colby; I still can't believe her murder was completely random,

Me either, R7, it was all so strange...

Barbara was so good in the roles I saw her in:

The Steven Spielberg directed first episode of the 'Columbo' series 'Murder by the Book' and

In her recurring role on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as the prostitute with a heart of gold

Getting cast on a show like "Phyllis" must have been like winning the lottery for an actress like Colby who didn't fit the conventional concept of beauty of the era...

And then to be murdered so tragically while walking to a parking lot after an acting class in Venice Beach with a friend

IIRC Barbara's friend lived long enough to provide police with a detailed account of the shooting and description the shooters. The police distributed good sketches of the perpetrators that I've seen online.

But sadly, no one has ever been charged in that shooting

Lisa Lisa Gerritsen (born December 21, 1957) who played Phyllis' daughter Bess on the MTM show and on Phyllis is an enigma to me...

She seemed talented and should have lots of other acting opportunities. Her last acting credit on Wikipedia was a TV role in 1978.

But Gerritsen seems to have left show business completely and dropped out sight after that 1978 role.

She's been discussed on other DL threads, and no one has been able to find a current picture of Gerritsen or any updates about her life.

I could watch all of these Phyllisses now; but I recall a review at the time saying that the second banana (or third) wasn't the right person to cast as the lead

Rhoda was an exception.

So tragic about Barbara Colby. I was a kid when I read about her, tragic.

still, she got 48 episodes of out it.

That's pretty good.

A strange thing about Phyllis is that the cast kept dying.

Barbara Colby was murdered after the first three episodes. The actors playing Mother Dexter and her husband died halfway through the second season, depriving the show of its breakout character. Then Jane Rose (Audrey) was diagnosed with cancer.

I remember reading an interview with Cloris where she said the president of CBS took her to dinner and asked her if he should cancel the show. She basically said "Hell yes," because she was convinced the show was cursed.

I remember Judith Lowry, the actress who played Mother Dexter, was on a popular poster of the late 60s-70s of an old woman in a chair smoking weed.

Ed Winter was handsome. I liked him on Golden Girls, too.

OP - great episode. Thanks for posting.

^ bottom

I knew Barbara and Bob from ACT in SF. She was fantastic in "The House of Blue Leaves". It was horrible when she was murdered, as she had a promising career. She was great on "Columbo."

Although she didn't mention her by name, Liv Ullmann describes how Colby was raped in her hotel room when they were doing A Doll's House on the road.

I lived in LA during the murders and followed it intensely. One lead detective felt it was not random. He felt it was retaliation for a racially incendiary play she did in LA and had been threatened as a result of it.

Originally the show was supposed to focus mostly on Phyllis and Bess, but Lisa Gerritsen, though a charming child actor, was not very interesting as a young adult--she was neither pretty nor very talented in her late teens. And Mother Dexter (who more or less was expected to do only an occasional walk-on) was so funny that the writers beefed up her part considerably.

Jane Rose was actually quite funny as Phyllis's dotty mother-in-law Audrey.

Liz Torres wasn't bad as a replacement.

I always thought Liz Torres was a great replacement for Barbara Colby. She even looked like her.

It was a big mistake when they took Phyllis out of the photography studio and put her working in city hall. I guess everyone connected with the show had sad memories of Colby and so wanted to change the story, but that often comes across for fans of the show from the beginning as an insult.

When the show began, it was HUGE. In the movie "Network," Orson Welles has a voice-over about how the fictional "Howard Beale Show" is so successful in 1976 that it is only behind "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Phyllis" in the ratings.

A long time ago on DL (15+ years ago) we discussed Lisa Garritson and we did find her married and living in Northern California. She married well but led a very conventional life (possibly in academia) and I recall we did find a pic that she herself had posted online - a blog or work reference of some sort, and once it hit DL it got back to her and she yanked it. She's apparently very private and protective.

Lisa Gerritsen was the poor man's Quinn Cummings.

[quote]Her new beau has a... secret.

I hope it's not ... SYPHILIS!

She lives in Petaluma and now goes by Leisa True Gerritsen Rustan and has a son.

She is on FB but her profile is on lockdown now, which is what happened when we linked to it on DL. In 2010 at least, I recall she still looked like I remembered her.

I always liked Lisa, and hoped she was a bit like her character in real life. That she has moved on from show biz and made a life for herself is wonderful. Always leave 'em wanting more!

Recent photo of Lisa Gerritsen:

I will say that in hindsight it's a good thing the show was cancelled in 1977. Can you imagine them trying to address Harvey Milk's murder the following year?

I wonder if Jodie Foster was ever up for the role of Bess? It was tailor-made for her: the poker-faced smart girl with a droll sense of humor.

But her mother Brandy directed her to edgy projects that built her resume', and the rest is history.

CBS replaced Phyllis with On Our Own, which was a one-season flop. But it introduced the world to another Bess ... Armstrong.

And to a lesser extent, the woman who went on to play young Dorothy on Golden Girls.

R32 it also introduced Dixie Carter.

Marjorie Bennett played "Buffalo Face" Ellen on Mother Dexter's wedding and if Lowry had lived, she likely would have been an amusing foil.

I know there were problems that first first year but I always wondered why they would make such drastic changes on such a huge hit? It was number 6 in the ratings sandwiched between Rhoda and All in the Family. The Second season they made Phyllis a boring work place comedy. It was sad. First season it was really funny.

r31 Jodie Foster was only 8 years old in 1970--probably too young for the Bess character. (Gerritsen was 13.)

CBS thought Phyllis's workplace could be funnier.

The producers and writers thought that putting busybody, flighty Phyllis in the seat of power at City Hall would be funny.

It probably would have been, if they'd written any good scenes there.

[quote] Barbara Colby; I still can't believe her murder was completely random,

I can’t either! I would imagine it would have been someone who knew the horrible cunt.

Had Barbara Colby lived, they might have stayed at the photography studio. Liz Torres was just a very weak replacement.

r29, no gurl, no. Not her. Maybe that's this woman's name, but it is not the former actress we're discussing here.

That is Lisa Gerritsen, r40. Here she is as a child on "Phyllis."

No r41, your lazy a** Googling failed. Here's where that photo is linked and the two photos don't match at all and neither is of actress Leisa Gerritsen Rustan. The pics available in 2010-12 before she put them on ,lockdown show a person who looked almost exactly like her former self. Her mouth and nose are very distinctive, still.

Still not streaming ANYWHERE!

Ed Winter also played the boss in one season of the awful 9 to 5 show. He was still very handsome and hunky in it. I had a crush on him for a long time after I saw those episodes a decade after they originally aired.

[quote]Still not streaming ANYWHERE!

You can watch just about every episode on YouTube

I set it on auto-play and watched just about every episode a couple of weeks ago

I ate out Judith Lowry’s snatch!

R12 That's what was both interesting and challenging about the show - Phyllis as a character wasn't particularly likeable. She was self-centered, egotistical, and had a hard time seeing beyond her own issues. So to have a sitcom centered around kind of an annoying woman was definitely different. All in the Family was similar, but the rich characters surrounding Archie helped drown out a lot of his worst qualities.

They softened up Phyllis a bit in the second season, and she got kind of lost her edge. It wasn't as much fun to watch yet another version of Mary Richards.